Eighteen months after registering their first ERAS patient, the team in Cape Town held their first education seminar on Monday 26th September 2016. 73 delegates from four Cape Town hospitals attended the daylong meeting, with representatives from all the professions involved in the ERAS multi-disciplinary team.

Thank you to ERAS Nurse Co-Ordinator, Fiona Pieterse for this great report and pictures.

It is with a heavy heart that we must say farewell to our friend and colleague Dorthe Hjort Jakobsen. After chairing the ERAS Society Nursing Group for several years, Dorthe has decided to step down and concentrate on her role as local improvement facilitator in Denmark. She will continue to keep a watchful eye on the ERAS Society’s work and will remain a useful resource for anyone that needs her advice and support in the future.

Dorthe has worked closely with Prof Henrik Kehlet for over the last 2 decades and if Henrik is described as the Godfather or the King of ERAS, then Dorthe is the Queen!! Prof Fearon often referred to Dorthe as “The ERAS Queen!” Her early contribution to the role of the nurse in “Fast-Trak” was instrumental to the development of our current roles as ERAS Nurses.

She has presented at numerous national and international conferences and has published several papers within “Fast-Trak” and ERAS care pathways and the role of the nurse within these pathways. She has always been an advocate for multi-disciplinary team working and for the nurse to be recognised as a clinical practitioner whose role was just as important as any other member of the team. The cornerstone of any successful ERAS pathway is the team and Dorthe always strived to promote that.

When asked, Dorthe feels very mixed emotions; sad to be stepping down as chair of this group but excited that ERAS programmes are being implemented on such an international scale. She is very proud of the accomplishments the ERAS Nurses have achieved over the last 20 years and she has enjoyed meeting and advising many nurses and teams about “fast-trak” and ERAS programmes since its original inception in the mid-1990’s.

She would like to see the Nursing group and the ERAS website used more as helpful resources for nurses:

“The website should be used as a place for inspiration – examples of nursing care plans/ diaries and of course, the patient perspective. I love that the Patient Voice videos are on there! We should get some more stories from patients and their families. After all – we all want the same thing – better outcomes for our patients!”

In the interim, it is with an even heavier heart (just kidding) that I have agreed to be interim chair of the ERAS Nursing Group. “My name is Angie Balfour and I have been an ERAS nurse for just a little while (since 1994) so I guess it’s only fair that the 2nd oldest ERAS nurse takes over this role!!”

I have been the ERAS nurse in Edinburgh for several years working under the very watchful and supportive guidance of Prof Ken Fearon who sadly passed away at the beginning of September. The role of ERAS Nurse was very important to him and the fact that there are now lots of ERAS Nurses around the globe had made him and the other founding members of the ERAS Society very proud.

With that in mind – it is my job to make sure we use this nursing group – to ask questions – to share experiences and lessons learned – to meet at congresses for G & T.

The ERAS USA (erasusa.org) the ERAS Chapter for the USA of the ERAS Society was launched in Washington DC. ERAS USA will work alongside ERAS Society for the further development of ERAS in the USA and worldwide in a range of surgical disciplines, as well as running educational activities and ERAS implementation programs across the USA. Professor Tonia Young-Fadok, Mayo Clinic, Scottsdale is the first president of ERAS USA.

Two hospitals in Brazil just finished the 1st ERAS Society Implementation Program; The Albert Einstein Hospital in Sao Paolo and Santa Casa de Misericórdia de Porto Alegre. Both hospitals show excellent change management yielding good outcome results. The Training was performed under the regional leadership of Professor Adrian Alvarez, The Italian Hospital in Buenos Aires Vice President off ERAS Implementation for LATAM, alongside ERAS coach Valerie Addor from CHUV Lausanne with the assistance of Profs Olle Ljungqvist, Sweden and Nicolas Demartines, CHUV, Switzerland.

Tan Toc Seng Hospital hosted the 1st ERAS Society symposia in Singapore attracting more than 200 participants. The TTSH team has completed the ERAS Society Implementation Program with successful outcomes and is in the planning to start offering this training to other units in Singapore and the region. These results of this training also made headlines in the local press. For more information about upcoming actions in ERAS locally, please click here

We’re pleased to announce the 2017 ERAS Alberta Symposium agenda, which is packed with local and international ERAS clinical experts. The ERAS Alberta 2017 Symposium is hosted by the Surgery Strategic Clinical Network, Alberta Health Services (AHS) to facilitate local, national and international Enhanced Recovery After Surgery (ERAS) best practices.

Join your colleagues for stimulating discussions and presentations on Friday, January 27 and Saturday, January 28 for interactive discussions and high caliber presentations from leading international, national and local experts.